Gaming machines which provide players awards in primary or base games are well known. Gaming machines generally require the player to place or make a wager to activate a primary or base game. Certain known gaming machines enable a player to wager on and play a plurality of primary or base games simultaneously or concurrently. In many of these gaming machines, the award for each played primary game is based on the player obtaining a winning symbol or symbol combination and on the amount of the wager placed on that primary game (e.g., the higher the wager, the higher the award). Generally, symbols or symbol combinations which are less likely to occur usually provide higher awards.
Gaming machine accounting systems are also well known. Certain gaming machine accounting systems include one or more servers, controllers or remote hosts which are in secure communication with a plurality of gaming machines. These gaming machine accounting systems are configured to automate various metering and/or event reporting required of the play of the plurality of gaming machines. That is, various gaming machine accounting systems monitor, track, measure, record, store, and/or access various data associated with the gaming machines and/or the players playing the gaming machines. Such data typically includes statistical and/or financial information, such as coin-in statistics, coin-out statistics, coin drop statistics, win/loss statistics, jackpot statistics, cancelled credits statistics, paytable statistics, denomination statistics, and/or games played statistics. The monitoring of this statistical and/or financial information enables a gaming establishment operator to analyze the performance of the various gaming machines located at a gaming establishment and to analyze the individual games and paytables installed on such gaming machines.
While various known gaming machine accounting systems provide numerous reporting and analytical benefits for gaming establishment operators, certain known gaming machine accounting systems are configured to account for each gaming machine only playing one game at a time. That is, certain known gaming machine accounting systems are not configured to support a player at a gaming machine placing a plurality of wagers on a plurality of simultaneous or concurrent plays of a plurality of primary or base games and specifically placing a plurality of wagers on a plurality of concurrent plays of a plurality of different primary or base games. Specifically, certain known gaming machine accounting systems track gaming machines meters and also game change events. Such known gaming machine accounting systems post-process the data to determine the play on each paytable. To report concurrent plays of a plurality of different primary games, such gaming machines first need to report which primary game is currently being played and then allow sufficient time for the gaming machine accounting system to register a changed game play before reporting any plays of that game. However, due to the time differences between such reporting and such game change events (i.e., one known gaming machine accounting system may poll the gaming machines every two-hundred milliseconds while certain know gaming machines require 1.5 seconds to register a game change event), known gaming machine accounting systems often fall behind on such reporting and the post-processing of data and are thus not configured to account for a gaming machine playing a plurality of games at a time. Therefore, the gaming machines in communication with these known gaming machine accounting systems are unable to enable a player to wager on and play a plurality of primary or base games simultaneously. Accordingly, gaming establishment operators using these gaming machine accounting systems are unable to offer simultaneous game play features to players (compared to gaming establishment operators using gaming machine accounting systems that enable simultaneous game play) and are at a disadvantage to other gaming establishment operators using different gaming machine accounting systems.
Additionally, certain known gaming servers, gaming controllers or gaming remote hosts provide for various non-gaming machine initiated features or requests for the plurality of gaming machines. That is, certain gaming servers, gaming controllers or gaming remote hosts are configured to initiate one or more events, such as a request for information and/or a reconfiguration of a paytable, at one or more of the plurality of gaming machines in communication with these gaming servers, gaming controllers or gaming remote hosts. While these gaming server, gaming controller or gaming remote host initiated features or requests have certain advantages (such as an increased volatility for certain players that enjoy more volatile gaming experiences), these gaming server, gaming controller or gaming remote host initiated features or requests also have certain disadvantages (such as an increased volatility for certain other players that dislike more volatile gaming experiences). Additionally, certain of these gaming server, gaming controller or gaming remote host initiated features or requests interrupt a player's gaming experience, such as by causing the reels to spin for an extended period of time as requested information or data is being communicated back to the gaming server, gaming controller or gaming remote host. Moreover, these gaming server, gaming controller or gaming remote host initiated features or requests are difficult for gaming machine designers to account for when configuring gaming machines.
Accordingly, there is a continuing need to provide new and different gaming machines and gaming systems which operate with existing gaming machine accounting systems. There is also a continuing need to provide new and different gaming machines and gaming systems which minimize the affects of certain gaming server, gaming controller or gaming remote host initiated features or requests.